5G: Choice of India in Post West World Order

India has no choice but to align herself with the Post-West order. Permitting Huawei equipment to be used by telecom service provider in the 5G trials is just the beginning, and keeping it out of Indian 5G infrastructure will not be possible

By Maj Gen Lav Bikram Chand (Retd)

Editor Technology

The world of AI, Autonomous Vehicles, Virtual Reality, Data Aware Networks, IoT, M2M, Tele-Medicine and Remote Surgery, Robotics, Future Networks and….. is a reality. 5G standards have been formulated by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) keeping all these applications in mind. Welcome to the world of 5G!!

 

The rapid advancement of China has ushered in a new world order ‘Post West’. Bipolar and Unipolar world is a world order of the past. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) way back since late 90s has a stated policy of Asymmetric Warfare in Technology. The governing factor in PLA adopting this strategy was – “PRC (People’s Republic of China) would never be able to match the technological advancement of the combined West. The strategic opportunity offered by this threat was to exploit “The Western World becoming a slave of technology”. If their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure could be crippled, the nation state could be brought to a grinding halt. The emergence of Hacker’s brigade, supply chain infection, technology espionage by Chinese sympathisers etc. was all off-shoots of this strategy.

5G will enable a host of new technologies that will change the standard of public and private sector operations, from autonomous vehicles to smart cities, virtual reality, and battle networks

PLA’s Asymmetric Warfare in technology strategy has now started to impact the West. US President Donald Trump’s open threat to its allies and business partners to ban Huawei and other Chinese companies in ICT or else face degradation of their favoured nation status explicates the success of this strategy of PLA. India is a huge market of International Mobile Telecommunications. One can accurately assume that, banning of Huawei in Indian trials and roll out in IMT 2020 (5G) was discussed at a high level (Trump and Modi) during Indian PM’s visit to US in September 2019. The same must have been discussed during the Visit of Chinese President to India in October 2019. Ironically, China has now become a victim of its own Asymmetric Technology Warfare – the world looks at Chinese products with suspicion. Technology leader, in today’s commercial world, cannot propagate a strategy of Asymmetric Technology Warfare.

 

The flip-flop of banning and permitting Huawei 5G products in the 5G trials in India is a clear indication of decision dilemma on the part of Ministry of Communications. Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) too was pressing the Government of India to clear its stand on the Huawei issue. One can assess the powerful impact of Post West (China), on 5G in particular and overall ICT, from the fact that one of the governing factors for all telecommunication giants in India pending their 5G partnership decision till GoI cleared their stand on Huawei participation. In my opinion Statement of Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Communications and Electronics and Information Technology permitting participation of Huawei in 5G trials is a balancing act to keep both US and China at bay for the moment. Extract of GoI Press release (Indian Express 31st Dec 2019) stated – “The government has decided to give all telecom operators and equipment manufacturers, including Chinese giant Huawei, clearance to start trials for 5G services in the country. Speaking at an event Monday (30th Dec 2019), Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “We have taken the decision to give 5G spectrum for trial to all the players. The in-principle decision has been taken.”

 

Is US sabre-rattling when they raise the issue of national security and the deliberate injection of malware and vulnerabilities by Huawei and other Chinese companies? The sequence of events leading to US decision to ban Lenovo, Huawei gives credibility to their decision. It compels other countries to pause and ponder. In the current competitive world with US having already lost the race in 4Geco-system to China and in all certainty, they are going to lose the 5G race too. This statement may sou nd to be an anti-US and biased statement, but let me elucidate certain facts and I leave it to the esteemed readers to decide:

Spectrum Constraint: 5G ecosystem is evolving in 3 – 4 GHz band; popularly known as the Sub-6 band and >30 Ghz Band (~28 GHz – 300 GHz) popularly known as mmWave band. Both of these bands have respective advantages and corresponding disadvantages, which are governed by the laws of physics and hence not alterable. Sub-6 has the advantage of larger ranges and thus larger cell size. mmWave band, on the other hand has an advantage of miniature equipment, larger band width but a major disadvantage of very small cell size. To cover an area mmWave would require considerably large number of resultant towers, eNodes. Thus, it is a certainty that in the initial stages of 5G roll out, mm band will be disadvantaged by extremely higher CAPEX in comparison to Sub-6 band roll out. Unfortunately for US the entire Sub-6 spectrum is occupied and owned by Federal Forces. Due to the non-availability of even the mandatory 250 MHz in 3 – 4 GHz EM Spectrum band US’s focus was in developing 5G in mmWave band. The only other country that ventured into mmWave band was Japan. Rest of the world focused on developing 5G ecosystem in Sub-6 band. And in Post-west, China has no competitor other than US. US has already lost the race of 5G even before it commenced. The detailed report by Defense Innovation Board (DIB) of US titled “5G Eco System: Risks and Opportunities for DoD” of Apr 2019 very categorically acknowledges the Electro Magnetic Spectrum handicap of US and recommends that Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) should consider it a top priority to vacate Sub-6 band for 5G roll out.

Ministry of Defence needs to carry out a study by a team of experts to ponder over induction of 5G v/s LTE/ 4G. Over caution in considering 5G because it is not a mature technology and going for LTE would result in premature technology obsolescence

Why 5G?: The term “5G” refers to the oncoming fifth generation of wireless networks and technology that will produce a step-change improvement in data speed, volume, and latency (delay in data transfer) over fourth generation (4G and 4G LTE) networks. 5G will enable a host of new technologies that will change the standard of public and private sector operations, from autonomous vehicles to smart cities, virtual reality, and battle networks. As per the DIB Report of US – “Historical shifts between wireless generations suggest that the first-mover country stands to gain billions in revenue accompanied by substantial job creation and leadership in technology innovations. First movers also set standards and practices that were then adopted by subsequent entrants. Conversely, countries that fell behind in previous wireless generation shifts were obligated to adopt the standards, technologies, and architectures of the leading country and missed out on a generation of wireless capabilities and market potential.” India will have to follow the leader and the First Movers. Choice of 5G is crystal clear.

Security Constraints: Supply Chain Management: US raised a big hula bulla over the national security issues arising due to Huawei being caught red handed in industrial espionage and the Lenovo case of intentionally preloading malwares in their computers. But again, US too is notorious for its spying/ surveillance on foreign country leaders, diplomats, public under their PRISM under FISA 2008 (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Every country holds their national interest and national security foremost. So, even if India imports from any foreign country friend or geo-strategic adversary, there exists the risk of supply chain infestation. In today’s geo-political situation, the risk of Supply Chain infection in Chinese products is considerably higher and has to be banned for defence use. With China’s vision of becoming numero uno economic power, China cannot afford to lose trust of client nations because of its practiced Asymmetric Technology Warfare through supply chain infestation. Economic fallout and loss of business will compel China to mend its ways and build trust in Supply Chain Purity. Hacking, on the other hand, falls in grey zone and will be adopted by China. However, the prevailing situation in European continent is at a slight variance to our Ban China Product in Telecommunication Network. Huawei is the principal OEM of British Telecommunications. Considering the security risks, Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) has entered into a very detailed MoU with Huawei. The contract is being overseen by National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). Under this MoU, Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board has been jointly setup. HCSEC Oversight Committee under GCHQ carrier out annual audit of HCSEC; one of the important aspect of the audit is ensuring that the HCSEC is Assurance of Total Independence of HCSEC and no influence/ bias of Huawei or industry. The facility has been set up in 2010 at a cost of $2 billion over five years. HCSEC has submitted five annual reports and it clearly emerges that (quote):-

    • The vulnerabilities observed in the Huawei equipment can not be attributed to intentional action by the company;
    • There remains no end-to-end integrity of the products as delivered by Huawei and limited confidence on Huawei’s ability to understand the content of any given build and its ability to perform true root cause analysis of identified issues. This raises significant concerns about vulnerability management in the long-term;
    • That Huawei’s software component management is defective leading to higher vulnerability rates and significant risk of unsupportable software, the general software engineering and cyber security quality of the product continues to demonstrate a significant number of major defects.
    • The Oversight Board advises that it will be difficult to appropriately risk manage future products in the context of UK deployments, until Huawei’s software engineering and cyber security processes are remediated. The Oversight Board currently has not seen anything to give it confidence in Huawei’s ability to bring about change via its transformation programme and will require sustained evidence of better software engineering and cyber security quality verified by HCSEC and NCSC.

It is a reality in telecommu-nication and IT that, even the equipment manufactured in Western countries will have the primary and core components manufactured in western countries. But, peripheral components and even the PCBs are most likely to be of Post West origin (mainly China and Taiwan).

Despite all the procedures put in place by NCSC of HMG, the assurance levels still remain an issue. GoI has no plans to face address the supply chain risks in 5G. Banning Chines equipment or self-certification by OEMs of friendly country is an ostrich approach.

– The author is a retired Indian Army officer from Signals. He has vast experience in design and rollout of ICT Communication Infrastructure both Strategic and Tactical.